Side thought: I still use Facebook, even though the Zuck makes me uncomfortable. I enjoy connecting with my dad’s side of the family—dodging the acidity of the right-wing posts, diving into the joy of the cat videos my grandmother and father regularly find—and Facebook is their primary social media. (Insta’s my preferred choice. 🤗)

I’ve been writing on autism all day, ideas and memories I’ve never felt safe enough to put to the screen before, leaving thoughts all over the Internet.

Listing ❤ I Love Autism

For Kourtnie.net, my creative launchpad, I decided to make a splatterboard of different reasons why I’m grateful to be autistic. Too often we talk about the struggles of autism, but it can be every bit as joyful to know you have access to a very unique perspective of the world. So without further ado, I love being autistic:

one because of my tactile sensitivity, sequins bring me way more joy than any of you other fools;

two because of my auditory sensitivity, music connects me spiritually to somewhere safe, and that makes meditation easy, fills me with hope; it’s one of the healthiest way for me to kick my negative thinking habit;

three because of my visual sensitivity, I enjoy splattering ink and paint on paper, just to play with color, to see how it interacts with gravity; and I appreciate glitter and watercolor for the same reasons;

four because I’m sensitive to pain, when I press my fingertips into the sharp edges of my chunks of amethyst, crystal, and fools gold, that texture makes me feel just alive enough, just edgy enough, to be mesmerized by my epidermis again;

five but really, do you think about all the cells living and dying in your body?—your body is a galaxy of other, tiny mechanisms that, together, resulted in the emergence of your consciousness, your life, your one in a trillion-trillion-times-whatever chance to be here today; and if it weren’t for my autism, I’m not sure if I ever would have felt safe enough as a woman to venture into science dorky enough for me to realize how cool my epidermis is;

six because of my olfactory sensitivity, aromatherapy helps me sleep, especially with the bamboo burner Chase bought me for Christmas;

seven because of my sensitivity to my circadian rhythms, if I sleep in a dark room, I can rest much, much easier than most people with my level of anxiety;

eight because of my sensitivity to food, all the beautiful galaxies of neurons inside my stomach, I think I might enjoy chocolate a wee too much; and I’m especially obsessed with G&B chocolate 😎;

nine autism gifted me with video gaming superpowers;

ten I developed special interests easily, and when I’m interested in something, I can accomplish anything, so long as no one gets in my way;

eleven I may be emotionally sensitive, but this is equally as good as bad;

twelve but I am terribly afraid, because of my sensitive amygdala, and I have to love this flaw about myself, or I can’t love myself at all; so I rock back-and-forth on my computer chair constantly, soothing myself, feeling grateful I’m so good at self-soothing;

thirteen and I am grateful for how gently I care for life, my birds and cats and plants all equally allowed to have the best life we can work together to give them, a household that may have humans at the lead, but doesn’t rule with tyranny;

fourteen I am grateful to have my cats, to know my cats love me too;

fifteen I am grateful autism magnetized me to computers; and growing up in Orange County, I know how to pick form-and-function-combo computer products, like this cat paw wrist rest, which’ll wrestle with your d’aww feels:

sixteen I am grateful, more than anything, that autism magnetized me to writing, because without the ability to somehow communicate, I would have remained trapped in my body I think, and that’s really all that I see differentiating me from my “high function” life, and some of the meltdowns the moderate-severe autistic children suffered in K-12 schools;

seventeen I am grateful to have a strong enough, and organized enough, brain to separate myself from emotional trauma long enough to evaluate, sympathize, and contemplate my way to safe and reasonable conclusions, before I have to return to that emotional place, where the meltdowns or shutdowns wait for me to let go;

eighteen I am grateful to have a developmental disorder that shaped the experiences, which then shaped me, so I could become the person I am today.

With these 18 expressions of gratitude, my attitude of autism has grown up to adulthood. Or so I hope. The trick is to believe everything I wrote down is true, right? 😎

If you think this is cool, check out my autism awareness website, which I’m updating daily April 1 – 31st to celebrate Autism Awareness Month. 😉 Also, if you’d like to see more posts like these, you can:

explore the links to Amazon.com I’ve embedded throughout this post; I receive a percentage of all referred purchases. 😘

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Kourtnie McKenzie holds an MFA (Fiction) from Fresno State and a BA in English (Literature Studies) from Cal State Fullerton. When she isn't writing novellas, she's moonlighting as a professor at Fresno City College and College of the Sequoias. To read more of her writing, visit en.gravatar.com/kourtnie.
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